Chapter 2: God becomes the Trinity
2.1: God: a metaphysical abstraction—the necessary being
In the beginning we see God as a personality, something like a human but untouchable, invisible, omnipotent and omniscient, the creator. As we follow the career of Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible we learn that they are a very jealous person, conscious of the benefits they have bestowed on their people, and very demanding:
Then God spoke all these words:
I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall not have other gods beside me. . . . For I, the LORD, your God, am a jealous God, inflicting punishment for their ancestors’ wickedness on the children of those who hate me, down to the third and fourth generation; but showing love down to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments. (Exodus 20:1–6)
Jesus is portrayed as a normal human personality in the New Testament. As the Son of Yahweh he has miraculous powers, sharing the omnipotence and omniscience of his father but human and accessible rather than speaking through fire on mountain tops.
Aquinas would have been aware of the first meeting between Yahweh and Moses where the god gave a rather metaphysical account of themself:
“But,” said Moses to God, “if I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘ The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what do I tell them?” God replied to Moses: "I am who I am". Then he added: "This is what you will tell the Israelites: I AM has sent me to you." (Exodus 3:13–14) I Am that I Am - Wikipedia
In his discussion of the simplicity of God, Aquinas concludes that in God essence and existence are the same, which is to say that the essence of God is to exist, they are the necessary being as (perhaps) Yahweh told Moses. Aquinas, Summa, I, 3, 4: Are essence and existence the same in God?
2.2: From metaphysical abstraction to three personalities
In the New Testament Yahweh and their Son Jesus are literary figures, characters in a long story which begins with the creation of the world, takes us through a period of sin and destruction, and then promises a glorious ending where paradise will be restored, and justice will prevail. The good will enjoy an eternity of bliss in heaven with God and the bad will be punished with an eternity of pain in Hell with Satan.
The New Testament was written in the century after the murder of Jesus. It introduces a third divine person the Spirit who made their first appearance at the baptism of Jesus:On coming up out of the water he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit, like a dove, descending upon him. And a voice came from the heavens, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased". (Mark 1:10–11).
Their principal appearance was at Pentecost:
And suddenly there came from the sky a noise like a strong driving wind, and it filled the entire house in which they were. Then there appeared to them tongues as of fire, which parted and came to rest on each one of them. And they were all filled with the holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues, as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim. (Acts 2:2–4). Pentecost - Wikipedia
2.3: The emergence of the Trinity
Monotheism carried over into Christianity but as the New Testament developed, a remarkable theological innovation became apparent: the sole Hebrew God Yahweh became the Father and was joined by the Son (Jesus) and the Holy Spirit. The gradual reception of the new doctrine raised a serious problem for theologians: how were they to reconcile the Hebrew unity of Yahweh with the triplicity of the Christian Trinity? Dale Tuggy (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy): History of Trinitarian Doctrines
The Trinity was established as a theological fact by the Nicene Creed, first written at Nicea in 325 and amended by the Council of Constantinople in 381. The theological theory began after the Nicene Council with Augustine of Hippo and was further developed in the thirteenth century by Thomas Aquinas and in the twentieth century by Bernard Lonergan. Augustine (419, 1991): The Trinity, Bernard Lonergan (2009) The Triune God: Doctrines, Lonergan (2007): The Triune God: Systematics
2.4: Augustine’s theology of the Trinity
Saint Augustine (354-430) was one of the most prolific and influential Fathers of the Church. He was a Berber from North Africa educated in Latin and spent his early life seeking administrative positions in the Roman Empire. His mother, Monica, was a staunch Christian. Under her influence he eventually became a Christian, a priest and a bishop and devoted his life to consolidating and expanding Christian doctrine and attacking heresies. On the Trinity, written between 400 and 428, eventually became his most influential work.
One of his starting points is the statement in Genesis: So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him (Gn I:27). He assumed that the word image here refers to the cognitive powers that we share with God, and so sought elements of triplicity in human psychology as a starting point for a model of the Trinity.
He also saw a New Testament confirmation of this idea in John's Gospel, which states: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (John, 1:1)
Tornau explains:
Augustine deploys what we may call his philosophy of the mind most fully in his great work on Nicene Trinitarian theology De trinitate. Having [dealt with some preliminaries] he turns to an analysis of the human mind as an image of God.
In the later books of De Trinitate and in the sermons on the Trinity, Augustine frequently refers to a phenomenon called “inner word”, which he uses to explain the relation of the inner-Trinitarian Word or Logos from the Prologue of John (John 1:1) to Christ incarnate. Just as the spoken word signifies a concept that we have formed within our mind and communicates it to others, so Christ incarnate signifies the divine Logos and admonishes and assists us to turn to it. Christian Tornau (Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy): Saint Augustine
2.5: The filioque controversy
The Latin filioque means and from the son. Augustine felt that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son as a consequence of their love for one another rather than from the Father alone. Others thought that the Spirit proceeded from the Father alone. This difference became a bone of contention between the Latin and Greek Churches which ultimately contributed to the East-West schism of 1054. It remains an unresolved political issue rather than a theological question. East-West Schism - Wikipedia
2.6: Thomas Aquinas on the Trinity
Aquinas followed Augustine’s explanation of the Trinity. The human psychological analogue of the procession of the Son from the Father is the mental image each one of us has of ourselves. The love of self manifested in ourselves when we contemplate our self image becomes, in the Trinity, a real divinity, the Holy Spirit. Aquinas derived all the traditional properties of God from the conclusion that God is pure act, actus purus, a consequence of a proof for God's existence which he derived from Aristotle.
Implicit in this approach is the idea that things which are accidental in created beings are substantial in divinity. So God's idea of himself is also a God. The love between Father and Son is also a God. In Catholic doctrine, this process stops at three. The Son's idea of themself is not another child.
The Trinity has no logical connection to the Aristotelian model of God. It was introduced into theology by the writers of the New Testament and cannot be understood in Christian dogmatic theology as a necessary consequence of the pure actuality of the divinity. Nevertheless the idea that God proceeds from God is rather like Cantor's theory of transfinite numbers, has no natural endpoint. Transfinite numbers - Wikipedia
In Augustine's time the doctrine of the Trinity, although asserted in the Nicene Creed written in 325, 75 years before he began to write On the Trinity, was still relatively new to theologians. By the time of Aquinas, writing in the thirteenth century, the doctrine was well established, not least due to Augustine's work. Aquinas produced a clear and concise account of the Trinity in the first part of the Summa. Aquinas, Summa, I, 27, 1: Is there procession in God?
2.7: Lonergan and the Word of God
A third stage in the modelling the Trinity was the twentieth century work of Bernard Lonergan. Lonergan who built on his study of Aquinas's use of the term verbum and his treatise Insight on human knowledge to add further detail to the meaning of the phrase the word of God. Lonergan continues in the tradition of a psychological analogy of the Trinity established by Augustine and Aquinas. Since I am using the Trinity as a starting point for the differentiation of the divine initial singularity (aka God) into the Universe, I feel that my best chance of producing a theory of everything that begins with a divine initial singularity and ends with the current state of the Universe is to take a cognitive approach analogous to the theology of the Trinity. Lonergan (1997): Verbum: Word and Idea in Aquinas
This approach is further motivated by the idea that the modern understanding quantum theory is that it is more than a traditional physical theory. It is seen as a theory of computation and communication, and it role in physics has the effect of converting physics from a study of inert matter into a study of creative consciousness Nielsen & Chuang (2016): Quantum Computation and Quantum Information
2.8: From Trinity to Universe
The heart of this project is to show that theology can become a science if we assume that the Universe is divine. An important feature of my project is to preserve as much of the traditional theology as possible, particularly the love, compassion and struggle against political theocracy which are integral to the life of Jesus as we know it. Two features of the traditional theology stand out.
First Augustine based his model of the Trinity on his understanding of human psychology which used combination of intellect and will to create an analogy of the understanding and love which explains the divine trinity. This led me to suspect that a divine Universe might best be understood through cognitive model that combines physics and theology. Theology is the traditional theory of everything. In this I am following Aristotle who worked his way from physics to metaphysics nearly 2400 years ago.Second, Aristotle’s idea introduced to Christianity by Aquinas that god is pure intellectual action provides a very convenient starting point from a quantum theoretical point of view. Although the Christian Trinity is limited by dogma to three persons, the idea that intelligent divine persons generate intelligent divine persons suggests a creative process adequate take the zero entropy initial singularity to the immensely complex Universe we inhabit. The generation of the Trinity might be extended without difficulty to the generation of any number of persons, from one to three to a countable infinity like the natural numbers.
2.9: Communication and personality
The interface between physics and theology revolves around the definition of person. In his treatment of the Trinity, Aquinas accepted the definition coined by Boethius: A person is an individual substance of a rational nature. In what follows I prefer the idea that a person is an entity capable of taking part in a conversation, that is a communication source capable of sending and receiving messages. This is more general than, but quite close to, Boehius's definition. Aquinas, Summa, I, 29, 1: A person is an individual substance of a rational nature
Ultimately the quantum mechanical picture of the Universe shows a vast multitude of elementary particles talking to one another. Like people they bind into groups of ever increasing complexity: atoms, molecules, cells, multicellular creatures, stars, planets, galaxies and ultimately the whole Universe.
This idea might seem a bit radical and oversimplified to start with but hopefully it will seem completely obvious by the end of the book. The important thing to remember is that we are not touching the heart of Christianity: love of god and neighbour. We are just replacing the cosmological and administrative fictions created by the Catholic Church (to justify its claim to be an infallible theocracy with a direct line to the God embodied in Jesus of Nazareth) with some more modern ideas based on our scientific picture of the world we live in. Like all persons or particles, we define ourselves through our communications with one another.
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Notes and references
Further reading
Books
Augustine (419, 1991), and Edmond Hill (Introduction, translation and notes), and John E Rotelle (editor), The Trinity, New City Press 399-419, 1991 Written 399 - 419: De Trinitate is a radical restatement, defence and development of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. Augustine's book has served as a foundation for most subsequent work, particularly that of Thomas Aquinas.
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Lonergan (1997), Bernard J F, and Robert M. Doran, Frederick E. Crowe (eds), Verbum: Word and Idea in Aquinas (Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan volume 2), University of Toronto Press 1997 Jacket: 'Verbum is a product of Lonergan's eleven years of study of the thought of Thomas Aquinas. The work is considered by many to be a breakthrough in the history of Lonergan's theology . . .. Here he interprets aspects in the writing of Aquinas relevant to trinitarian theory and, as in most of Lonergan's work, one of the principal aims is to assist the reader in the search to understand the workings of the human mind.'
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Lonergan (2007), Bernard J F, and Michael G Shields (translator), Robert M Doran & H Daniel Monsour (editors), The Triune God: Systematics (Collected Works, volume 12), University of Toronto press 2007 De Deo trino, or The Triune God, is the third great instalment on one particular strand in trinitarian theology, namely, the tradition that appeals to a psychological analogy for understanding trinitarian processions and relations.
The analogy dates back to St Augustine but was significantly developed by St Thomas Aquinas. Lonergan advances it to a new level of sophistication by rooting it in his own highly nuanced cognitional theory and in his early position on decision and love. . . . This is truly one of the great masterpieces in the history of systematic theology, perhaps even the greatest of all time.'
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Lonergan (2009), Bernard J F, and Robert M Doran and H Daniel Monsour (eds), The Triune God: Doctrines (Volume 11 of Collected Works), University of Toronto Press 2009 Bernard Lonergan (1904-1984), a professor of theology, taught at Regis College, Harvard University, and Boston College. An established author known for his Insight and Method in Theology, Lonergan received numerous honorary doctorates, was a Companion of the Order of Canada in 1971 and was named as an original members of the International Theological Commission by Pope Paul VI.
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Nielsen (2016), Michael A., and Isaac L Chuang, Quantum Computation and Quantum Information, Cambridge University Press 2016 Review: A rigorous, comprehensive text on quantum information is timely. The study of quantum information and computation represents a particularly direct route to understanding quantum mechanics. Unlike the traditional route to quantum mechanics via Schroedinger's equation and the hydrogen atom, the study of quantum information requires no calculus, merely a knowledge of complex numbers and matrix multiplication. In addition, quantum information processing gives direct access to the traditionally advanced topics of measurement of quantum systems and decoherence.' Seth Lloyd, Department of Quantum Mechanical Engineering, MIT, Nature 6876: vol 416 page 19, 7 March 2002.
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Links
Aquinas, Summa, I, 27, 1, Is there procession in God?, 'As God is above all things, we should understand what is said of God, not according to the mode of the lowest creatures, namely bodies, but from the similitude of the highest creatures, the intellectual substances; while even the similitudes derived from these fall short in the representation of divine objects. Procession, therefore, is not to be understood from what it is in bodies, either according to local movement or by way of a cause proceeding forth to its exterior effect, as, for instance, like heat from the agent to the thing made hot. Rather it is to be understood by way of an intelligible emanation, for example, of the intelligible word which proceeds from the speaker, yet remains in him. In that sense the Catholic Faith understands procession as existing in God.' back |
Aquinas, Summa, I, 29, 1, A person is an individual substance of a rational nature, ' I answer that, Although the universal and particular exist in every genus, nevertheless, in a certain special way, the individual belongs to the genus of substance. . . . . And so it is reasonable that the individuals of the genus substance should have a special name of their own; for they are called "hypostases," or first substances. Further still, in a more special and perfect way, the particular and the individual are found in the rational substances which have dominion over their own actions; and which are not only made to act, like others; but which can act of themselves; for actions belong to singulars. Therefore also the individuals of the rational nature have a special name even among other substances; and this name is "person." Thus the term "individual substance" is placed in the definition of person, as signifying the singular in the genus of substance; and the term "rational nature" is added, as signifying the singular in rational substances.' back |
Aquinas, Summa, I, 3, 4, Are essence and existence the same in God?, ' I answer that, God is not only His own essence, as shown in the preceding article, but also His own existence. This may be shown in several ways. First, whatever a thing has besides its essence must be caused either by the constituent principles of that essence (like a property that necessarily accompanies the species — as the faculty of laughing is proper to a man — and is caused by the constituent principles of the species), or by some exterior agent — as heat is caused in water by fire. Therefore, if the existence of a thing differs from its essence, this existence must be caused either by some exterior agent or by its essential principles. Now it is impossible for a thing's existence to be caused by its essential constituent principles, for nothing can be the sufficient cause of its own existence, if its existence is caused. Therefore that thing, whose existence differs from its essence, must have its existence caused by another. But this cannot be true of God; because we call God the first efficient cause. Therefore it is impossible that in God His existence should differ from His essence.' back |
Christian Tornau (Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy), Saint Augustine, ' Augustine was perhaps the greatest Christian philosopher of Antiquity and certainly the one who exerted the deepest and most lasting influence. He is a saint of the Catholic Church, and his authority in theological matters was universally accepted in the Latin Middle Ages and remained, in the Western Christian tradition, virtually uncontested till the nineteenth century. The impact of his views on sin, grace, freedom and sexuality on Western culture can hardly be overrated. These views, deeply at variance with the ancient philosophical and cultural tradition, provoked however fierce criticism in Augustine’s lifetime and have, again, been vigorously opposed in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries from various (e.g., humanist, liberal, feminist) standpoints.' back |
Dale Tuggy (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy), History of Trinitarian Doctrines, ' The New Testament contains no explicit trinitarian doctrine. However, many Christian theologians, apologists, and philosophers hold that the doctrine can be inferred from what the New Testament does teach about God. But how may it be inferred? Is the inference deductive, or is it an inference to the best explanation? And is it based on what is implicitly taught there, or on what is merely assumed there? Many Christian theologians and apologists seem to hold it is a deductive inference. In contrast, other Christians admit that their preferred doctrine of the Trinity not only (1) can’t be inferred from the Bible alone, but also (2) that there’s inadequate or no evidence for it there, and even (3) that what is taught in the Bible is incompatible with the doctrine.' back |
East-West Schism - Wikipedia, East-West Schism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' A series of ecclesiastical differences and theological disputes between the Greek East and Latin West preceded the formal split that occurred in 1054. Prominent among these were the procession of the Holy Spirit (Filioque), whether leavened or unleavened bread should be used in the Eucharist, the bishop of Rome's claim to universal jurisdiction, and the place of the See of Constantinople in relation to the pentarchy. . . . In 1965, Pope Paul VI and Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras I nullified the anathemas of 1054,[1] although this nullification of measures that had been were taken against a few individuals was merely a goodwill gesture; it did not constitute any sort of reunion.' back |
I Am that I Am - Wikipedia, I Am that I Am - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' "I Am that I Am" is a common English translation of the Hebrew phrase אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה (’ehye ’ăšer ’ehye;)—also "I am who (I) am", "I will become what I choose to become", "I am what I am", "I will be what I will be", "I create what(ever) I create", or "I am the Existing One". back |
Pentecost - Wikipedia, Pentecost - Wikipedia, the free ecyclopedia, ' Pentecost (also called Whit Sunday, Whitsunday or Whitsun) is a Christian holiday which takes place on the 50th day (the seventh Sunday) after Easter Sunday. It commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles and other followers of Jesus Christ while they were in Jerusalem celebrating the Feast of Weeks, as described in the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 2:1–31).' back |
Transfinite numbers - Wikipedia, Transfinite numbers - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Transfinite numbers are cardinal numbers or ordinal numbers that are larger than all finite numbers, yet not necessarily absolutely infinite. The term transfinite was coined by Georg Cantor, who wished to avoid some of the implications of the word infinite in connection with these objects, which were nevertheless not finite. Few contemporary workers share these qualms; it is now accepted usage to refer to transfinite cardinals and ordinals as "infinite". However, the term "transfinite" also remains in use.' back |